Saturday, October 13, 2012

Long story. Sick Lily.

I took these photos in the car on the way to pick up Jake the day before Lily got sick.

She looks good right? Well, that same evening lily had a low grade fever and no appetite. she was just wanting to lay down and sleep. I gave her some ibuprofen and then Tylenol rotating every four hours. I tried to anyway. She seemed to spit it out every time I attempted to give it to her.
By wednesday afternoon she was much worse. I took her temperature and it was 103.7. I thought "That can't be right." so I took mine (97.8 degrees) and I took hers again and again. Sure enough it was 103.7 degrees. This worried me, so I gave her a dose of Tylenol and called the pediatrician. She was unfortunately unavailable, but I told the receptionist what was going on and he said he would have the doctor call me, or that I could come in for their only opening for the day in five minutes. He seemed deeply concerned about Lily's high temperature. I packed us up and headed to the doctors office. Fortunately for us, Rick and Eileen were here visiting and were able to keep the other three kids for me.

When I got to the doctors office, I waited in the waiting room for a while and then the pediatrician came into the waiting room, gestured toward Lily, and announced that she would be taking her first because "she is very sick." I was impressed with that.

It had been about twenty minutes since I had given Lily the Tylenol, but when the doctor took Lily's temperature it was a whopping 104.3. yep, it had risen since I gave her medicine. Anyway, this worried the Doc and she informed me that when kids this little get fevers this high, they can start convulsing. She also told me that strep was going around and that multiple people had come in with fevers and tested positive for strep. She gave me some Ibuprofen to give to Lily, but of course Lily spit it all over the place, mostly in her hair though. the Dr. then gave us a prescription for a suppository so we could actually give her medicine effectively. After checking Lily out some more, she said that she was going to do a strep test on Lily and that if it was positive she would get us a prescription, but if it was negative she would have to send us to the hospital for a blood test to see if what was causing it was bacterial or viral. It was negative.

So after a quick phone call to Rick and Eileen informing them what was going on, Lily and I were off to the hospital. My poor Lily bean was so scared while the girl took her blood. The tech kept commenting on how hot Lily's skin was. She thought it was incredible.

After getting her blood drawn I took her to get an ice cream cone at McDonald's. That seemed to make her very happy. We stayed home for a while and lily's fever seemed to have broken. After dinner, the pediatrician called us and asked us to come back into her office.

I immediately took her in and the Dr. informed me that Lily's blood test had come back and her white blood cell count had skyrocketed. She also told me that the infection was indeed bacterial. She wanted to find out where the infection was. Because Lily wasn't coughing we ruled out her lungs/chest. The Dr. wanted a urine sample to see if it was a UTI. Lily and I went into the bathroom to pee in the cup, but after trying her hardest she said "The pee pee won't come!" After we came out of the restroom, the doctor was really disappointed not to get a sample. She said that She would have to give her a catheter if she didn't pee in the cup. We tried again. She didn't pee in the cup. After coming out the second time empty handed, the pediatrician told us that she had to do another procedure on someone else and that it would take about an hour. She really didn't want to subject Lily to a catheter. She said we could take the cup, go home, try again, and come back in an hour or so.

Lily and I headed back home once again. That's when the chocolate milk drinking contest began. we drank and drank. Finally she peed in the cup like the little trooper she is. I nursed the baby, gave Jacob a bath and got the kids ready for bed. Randy was gone doing friends of scouting, but Rick and Eileen were still there being so so helpful.

After an hour, we headed back out to the Doctors office for the third time that day. She was so glad that we had a urine sample. She tested it and it came out "clean". The Doc told us that she had sent in the extra blood taken for more tests. She also told us she was going to give Lily an antibiotic shot that "hurts really bad." Sounds exciting doesn't it. sigh. Anyway, she gave Lily the shot and through the screaming I tried to listed to what the Pediatrician was saying. I honestly don't think I heard much. It has been a long day and was after 9PM. She told me she had called in another prescription for the same antibiotic Lily was given in the shot. She told me to call her the next day and let her know if Lily's fever had remained high throughout the night. If it had, she needed to have another shot and maybe be admitted to the hospital.

We waited at the office another ten minutes or so just to be sure Lily didn't have a bad reaction to the shot.

We came home and went to bed. Lily slept through the night and didn't fever again the next morning. I called the pediatrician around noon and she was glad I called. She said that she had been worried about my little girl all night. I told her Lily was playing and acting like herself. She said that was great and told me to just give her the antibiotic every day for 10 days. She informed me that she would contact me if anything came up in the blood work later.

It is funny that the shot turned out to be a great thing. Because I told Lily that if she didn't take her medicine we would have to go back to the doctors office for a shot. She has taken her medicine since then. She also has been recovering just fine. She is back to picking on her brothers and trying to boss me around.